Qualities of an SAP Consultant

Business knowledge: An SAP Consultant must have good business knowledge in his/ her respective module. An SAP consultant has to interact with the client and understand his business. Unless SAP Consultant does not carry good business knowledge, he cannot understand, implement and support SAP.For example : If an SAP MM Consultant knows Purchasing and inventory management processes, then only he can map each business step of business processes into SAP. He must know Goods receipt, Physical inventory process etc.

Cross module knowledge : An SAP Consultant must have cross module knowledge. An SAP PM consultant should know the process overview of MM module and vice-versa. An SAP MM consultant must have overview of SAP SD module and vice-versa. Such kind of knowledge helps while working and understanding with other team members. Cross module knowledge helps in fixing out your role in a business process. It saves time. All big IT companies are looking for SAP Consultant with cross module knowledge.

Functional must have ABAP knowledge : An SAP Functional Consultant must have basic knowledge of ABAP programming. This helps them to understand the code of custom programs (Z developments). An SAP Functional Consultant must know debugging in custom programs. They must know creation of a Z table in ABAP. It is very easy to create a Z table. We would request to follow our website for more stuff on ABAP. We are sure that by starting of next year we will provide enough stuff for a functional consultant to learn ABAP. Its good to become a Techno-functional Consultant

Technical must have Functional knowledge : An ABAP programmer should have basic functional knowledge. This helps the ABAP programmer to put logical checks in ABAP code. Also it gives a good feeling to ABAP programmers if they know the reason of writing the code. If an ABAP programmer knows the business purpose of introducing of a custom field in a Z table then they can provide a logical F4 help (drop down list) with that field. F4 help improves the end user experience.

Good in documentation: An SAP Consultant (functional or technical) must be good in documentation. SAP consultants has to prepare a number of documents such as business blue print, design document, requirement gathering document, functional specification, technical specification, test scripts, configuration document, master data templates etc. He must prepare these documents in such a way that documents are easy to understand, revised with every change and self explanatory. Embed excel sheets or word documents if applicable. Overall there should be no room for misunderstanding. Information in documents must be crisp and clear. Many times we find that design document is not revised after changes. Functional specifications are not well prepared and not updated after changes. Functional consultant directly go to the desk of technical consultant and start explaining him/ her the logic. They should not avoid documenting the functional specifications. This is not a good practice. An SAP consultant must be good in documentation.

Good communication skills: Good communication skills are required because SAP Consultant interacts with senior people in business. A functional consultant has to communicate with client directly. Consultants must maintain a dialogue when work is in progress. As we know that it takes time to resolve an incident and develop a new application in SAP. Therefore, when work is in progress a functional consultant must maintain a dialogue with client. They must inform client that how much work is done rather than going into silent mode. Consultant can communicate with client by email or by phone call. They can also follow a template email.

Good MS Excel skills: An SAP consultant without MS excel knowledge is of no use. MS excel empowers a consultant to analyze and handle any kind of data in SAP. Many times client comes up with requirements where SAP consultant has to analyze huge data. In such situations ms excel skills helps the consultant to analyze data quickly. Therefore we have started a separate section for ms excel on SAPLoud.

Good Testing skills: Testing approach must be decided at the beginning. SAP is a software to map business processes of an enterprise. To check the quality of a development an SAP consultant should consider positive as well as negative test cases. As you know that SAP is an integrated system therefore, testing approach must be decided and defined in the designing phase (Blue Print). Impact of a small change into other modules must be tested in quality server. An SAP consultant with good testing skills can perform better at this stage.

Integration of module with other modules: SAP is the only ERP system which is fully integrated. An SAP consultant must know the integration if his/her module with other modules. This helps in defining the role and scope of projects. This also helps to identify the roles of individual consultant in each phase of project. Many times changes in the certain transaction have impact on other transactions of other modules. An SAP MM consultant must know that any kind of enhancement in Purchase requisition can impact PM, PP and SD module because PR is also triggered automatically from maintenance order, production order and sales order.

Team Work : An SAP consultant must have team work skills. System is integrated, therefore SAP consultant must work in a team with other members. Without team work it is not possible to achieve big goals. Every consultant in a team must think in the same direction.

Vaibhav is an engineer by schooling and an SAP Consultant by training with 12 years of experience. He is certified in SAP PM and SAP MM. His expertise includes SAP PM, SAP MM, SAP QM, and MS excel. His industry specialties are Chemical, Automobile, Electronics and Infrastructure. He has lots of experience in SAP Training and Consulting.

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4 Comments

Good evening sir
Myself Atul Kumar Pathak, i am working as a SAP PM consultant in one of the reputed companies. I have two doubts which i wanted to get clarified from ur side since your articles are very helpful.
1. How to create Z table in ABAP? As u told that it is a major functionality of a consultant.
2. How to create an order within an order? Is it possible?

I have entirely too much respect for expert ABAP programmers to believe that a good techno-functional consultant could simultaneously manage Blueprint, Realization, Data Conversion, and Go-Live while also developing the code for Z-Programs. I do agree that we need to be good at taking GAPS identified in Blueprint and developing good functional specifications for development by Analysts with module-specific experience. Writing excellent code is enhanced when the ABAP programmer has module specific knowledge. An expert programmer is also more likely to identify areas where error trapping needs to be developed, something functional consultants don’t always understand.

I have worked with programmers on both ends of the scale. On my first project in 1999, my functional specs were worked by a programmer living in Australia. We reviewed them in conference call, and then she said she would try to have something to show me in a few days. It was often the very next day, with a solution ready to show the client within a couple of days of that. Her screens were indistinguishable from the screens provided by SAP. Conversely, I had a programmer located in my same city. His company was trying to turn him from being a PM Consultant into an ABAP programmer, rather than lay him off. He tried hard, but lacking the academic background and the time spent working his way up the ranks under the tutelage of senior ABAP programmers, the results were not good. We ultimately postponed that work until the first programmer became available again.

Not only is it important for a consultant to know his or her module well, as well as the basic functionality of other modules ad the touchpoints, but it is important for us to encourage and respect each other’s professional knowledge in their own field. No person can do everything and do any of it very well.